ES4: Shivering Isles - Interview @ ActionTrip

February 5th, 2007, 23:51

Another interview again sees Mark Nelson dicussing the Shivering Isles expansion for Oblivion. Here&#39;s a snip from the interview at ActionTrip:

ActionTrip: I seem to recall that Elder Scrolls III add-ons (both Tribunal and Bloodmoon) were quite challenging. You needed to achieve a certain level before you can measure up to the new foes. Is the development team following the same principals with Shivering Isles?Mark Nelson: Not exactly. The Shivering Isles material doesn&#39;t require that the player be high-level at all. It&#39;s completely approachable for any level character. In general, though, the quests are longer and more complex, and experienced players will probably have a slight edge when it comes to completing them.

They should atleast put on/off option for level scaling since I think noone actually likes it and even the users know how to mod it away. But I guess they are so high and mighty now after the wild success of oblivion that they dont need to heed the needs of a common customer.

Luckily there are the mods. Without them I might be somwhat frustrated. Poor xbox players.

zakhal
"They should atleast put on/off option for level scaling"
While agree with you, thats the problem they can't because they would have to spend 6 months manually setting every NPC's and Monster's level and then some how test it for gameplay balance.

As you rightly mention, this is basicly what the Modders are doing, since they seem to actually care about the game they are doing a much better job than bethesda ever could, imo.

Iirc Morrowind didn't have level scaling maybe the people talented enough to actually build gameplay left the company.

— Trust me, most of the names I have been called you can't translate in any language…they're not even real words as much as a succession of violent images.

Elder scrolls have always had level scaling. Both Morrowind and Daggerfall replaced the roaming monsters with tougher species as you went up a level, but the regions had different monster lists and the starting region had a much lower max monster level than the northeast… Daggerfall actually went almost as far over board as Oblivion as you ended up with tonnes of Daedric items and Ancient vampires around every corner once past a certain level…

Originally Posted by Zaleukos
Elder scrolls have always had level scaling. Both Morrowind and Daggerfall replaced the roaming monsters with tougher species as you went up a level, but the regions had different monster lists and the starting region had a much lower max monster level than the northeast… Daggerfall actually went almost as far over board as Oblivion as you ended up with tonnes of Daedric items and Ancient vampires around every corner once past a certain level…

True all TES games have had level scaling, but it was never a problem until now. I think its just out of tune or somthing Oblivion. In previous games (3 games + 2 addons) it wasnt so noticeable. You even had to level up if you wanted to do quests. In oblivion I have heard people finishing even the main quest without levelling. Thats just ridiculous.

I guess I didn't say it well but yeah the level scaling was not absolutly everything, you had to level up in the earlier games..
Not only can you do the main quest at level 1 or 2 (whatever you come out of the sewers with, but any quest in the game, iirc.

Maybe it would be better called zone scaling in Morrowind, with an example the starting town would have level 1-5, the next town level 5-6 and so on.

— Trust me, most of the names I have been called you can't translate in any language…they're not even real words as much as a succession of violent images.